Writing on the Wall: Street artists transform the urban landscape

The walls of our cities are becoming canvases for creative expression in the hands of a new generation of artists. These kids are street-smart and engaged, (and, OK, they’re not all kids), and many of them infuse their work with social and environmental consciousness. In the Writing on the Wall series, Grist’s special projects editor Greg Hanscom looks into this colorful urban underworld, which one observer calls “the ghost in the urban machine becoming self-aware.”

Photo: c/o MooseStreet artist Moose Benjamin Curtis was having some difficulty with the police. The officers had just arrested him for creating designs on a wall in South London. But it was complicated — as …

The walls of our cities are becoming canvases for creative expression in the hands of a new generation of artists. These kids are street-smart and engaged. (And, OK, they’re not all kids.) They work, on …

“Window,” a photograph by L.A. artist Susanna Battin, appeared on a San Bernardino County billboard in December.Photo: Susanna BattinIf you drove down I-15 in San Bernardino County, Calif., outside of Corona, last Friday, you may …

Photo:Randal FordThe house was a nightmare. “It had been collecting dust and graffiti since Katrina and there was something very shabby and Brothers Grimm about it,” says Candy Chang, an artist and graphic designer who …